The personal show of the young generation painter Linas Jusionis titled There Were Just Marks Left on the Snow (Tik sniege liko žymės) which will be opened in Vartai Gallery in January features the artist’s works from the past few years evidencing the coherent evolution of the artistic position. The artist was discovered by the critics several years ago due to his unique rational and analytical approach to the creation of the paintings; exclusive style, including reduction of shapes and colours, minimalism, and smooth strokes; as well as clear links to cinematographic image, photography and literature, especially the French nouveau roman, and the works of Witold Gombrowicz. These are the features that distinguish Jusionis from both the young artists and the entire Lithuanian painting tradition.

Aesthetically restrained paintings are dominated by fragments of interconnected motifs of sports, leisure and landscape purposefully provoking the viewer’s mind to connect individual elements into an implicit story, thus creating mysterious tension further stimulated by the perception that the artist provides only elements, while the real story is hidden beyond the field of sight. Jusionis is intrigued by the obsessive quality of the human mind to construct reality by looking for causalities in every and each element. His works aim to actualise the preparation of the depiction process when the depicted elements begin speaking for themselves about themselves, while avoidance to represent the story and defined ideas or personal experiences and emotions create the need for meaning – and the search for that meaning satisfies the yearning for emotional and intellectual experience.

The works of painting introduced in the exhibition covering two rooms of the Gallery show the continuation of earlier creative principles, but also show new colour experiments and plastic solutions. The title of the show refers to the topic of construction of a story emphasised by the exhibition.

Linas Jusionis (born in 1986) is currently continuing his Master’s studies in Vilnius Academy of Arts. He has been participating in group exhibition since 2009 and has held four personal shows – one of them was part of the Artscape Latvija project (with Miks Mitrevics) organised by Vartai Gallery. Jusionis won the 2nd place in the Young Painter Prize competition in 2011.